Steam Box Catch-All

Given the amount of reading tea leaves (Gabe grew a beard! He's got two hands! 1+2=3! HL3 confirmed!) to predict what they're doing next I'm not sure I blame them so much as everyone on the internet getting their knickers in a twist. Lots of people wanted it to be the steambox, so that's what it became.

I could probably put up a picture of a slice of toast as my prototype steambox and a handful of people would take it seriously.

I have a Steambox already.. its called all my Gaming PC's and Laptops.. because they run Steam. (and lots of others things).

Scratched wrote:

Given the amount of reading tea leaves (Gabe grew a beard! He's got two hands! 1+2=3! HL3 confirmed!) to predict what they're doing next I'm not sure I blame them so much as everyone on the internet getting their knickers in a twist. Lots of people wanted it to be the steambox, so that's what it became.

I could probably put up a picture of a slice of toast as my prototype steambox and a handful of people would take it seriously.

What kind of video card?

Integrated BPU (Bread Processing Unit)!! 2.45 Slice-a-FLOPS!!

If you want a Steam box, build a PC into a "LAN box" case and plug it into your TV. That's what I did. Now that HDMI has erased the distinction between PC and TV input types, it's trivial.

*Legion* wrote:

Now that HDMI has erased the distinction between PC and TV input types, it's trivial.

Yup, you might also look for information on your TV. For example on Samsung sets changing the input's label to PC will disable processing which will reduce input lag but more importantly give you 1:1 pixel mapping and a much sharper image.

LiquidMantis wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Now that HDMI has erased the distinction between PC and TV input types, it's trivial.

Yup, you might also look for information on your TV. For example on Samsung sets changing the input's label to PC will disable processing which will reduce input lag but more importantly give you 1:1 pixel mapping and a much sharper image.

Really? Would that be the case if I changed the label for 360 from "Game Console" to "PC"?

LiquidMantis wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Now that HDMI has erased the distinction between PC and TV input types, it's trivial.

Yup, you might also look for information on your TV. For example on Samsung sets changing the input's label to PC will disable processing which will reduce input lag but more importantly give you 1:1 pixel mapping and a much sharper image.

I just disable post processing for everything in the menu system. I find that it makes everything look kind of fake when watching TV.

Gravey wrote:

Really? Would that be the case if I changed the label for 360 from "Game Console" to "PC"?

I would think it would help, although I don't know if it would be much better than switching to the TV's Game Mode.

EvilDead wrote:

I just disable post processing for everything in the menu system. I find that it makes everything look kind of fake when watching TV.

Yeah, I just keep the TV in PC mode period because I use my receiver to switch everything. However I don't know that you have access to all the options through the UI. Switching to PC mode also disables overscanning to get that 1:1 pixel mapping.

LiquidMantis wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Really? Would that be the case if I changed the label for 360 from "Game Console" to "PC"?

I would think it would help, although I don't know if it would be much better than switching to the TV's Game Mode.

Right, looks like Game Mode disables the video processing anyway.

I am a bit perplexed as to why Valve would entertain the idea of making a Steambox (which would entail extraneous costs such as support, etc) vs simply partnering with pc makers to make a "Steam Approved Box." With the attached moniker, Valve could set parameters such as "must be small form factor/have wireless built in/playable in living room, yadda yadda yadda in a similar fashion that Intel sets the parameters of what an "ultrabook" is. Intel sets up the minimum parameters and leaves it up to OTHERS to go through the trouble of manufacture, supply chain, and support, etc.

Valve already has their foot in people's door with a bajillion+ user base, they don't need hardware of their own.

Also, I'm a bit surprised that all the "leaked" info for the current steambox seems to indicate woefully underpowered GPUs / integrated graphics solutions.

Steam is first and foremost about PC games. If they are going through the trouble of making a box, it should be at the bare minimum be able to play the most demanding title at 60fps on medium settings / insert dedicated vid card here.

Gravey wrote:

Right, looks like Game Mode disables the video processing anyway.

That makes sense. So it's probably Game Console input equals no processing with overscan, since console UI's are designed with the expectation of overscan, and PC input is no processing without overscan. Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

EvilShawnAndrich wrote:

I am a bit perplexed as to why Valve would entertain the idea of making a Steambox (which would entail extraneous costs such as support, etc) vs simply partnering with pc makers to make a "Steam Approved Box." With the attached moniker, Valve could set parameters such as "must be small form factor/have wireless built in/playable in living room, yadda yadda yadda in a similar fashion that Intel sets the parameters of what an "ultrabook" is. Intel sets up the minimum parameters and leaves it up to OTHERS to go through the trouble of manufacture, supply chain, and support, etc.

Valve already has their foot in people's door with a bajillion+ user base, they don't need hardware of their own.

Also, I'm a bit surprised that all the "leaked" info for the current steambox seems to indicate woefully underpowered GPUs / integrated graphics solutions.

Steam is first and foremost about PC games. If they are going through the trouble of making a box, it should be at the bare minimum be able to play the most demanding title at 60fps on medium settings / insert dedicated vid card here.

Pretty much everything you said is exactly what Valve has been going for, as stated since the recent CES.

Some hints that Valve may be using Ubuntu as the base for its own Steam distribution:

What's of interest within this new "hometest" repository. The repository notes that this is for "Steam packages and updates for Steam based on Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS."

Found within the package pool are experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers, a Plymouth boot splash screen for Steam, and Valve wallpapers. There's also the Steam Linux client binary already offered to Linux gamers. A "steam-autoupdate" package is also present, which all it does is drop in a daily cron job of running the apt-get upgrade process in an automated manner.

It wouldn't be a surprise, seeing as how Ubuntu is the only Linux distribution for which they provide Steam presently.

http://www.zdnet.com/dell-now-offeri...

Nice Linux gaming PC option from a pretty good Gaming PC brand (I've owned Alienware laptops for years now with great success)

Sparhawk wrote:

http://steamboxbuild.com/

When I think Steambox I think of a more "off the shelf" experience. That is a PC build.

Sparhawk wrote:

http://steamboxbuild.com/

A) This isn't even a build guide. What are people supposed to do with this stuff?

B) Your build is insanely expensive.

Faceless Clock wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

http://steamboxbuild.com/

A) This isn't even a build guide. What are people supposed to do with this stuff?

B) Your build is insanely expensive.

A £1000 custom-built "Steambox"?

He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

IMAGE(http://www.thewhirlingwind.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/inigo_montoya.gif)

Yeah, that just seems like like some guy clickbaiting off the vague nebulous term really. It's just a list of parts.

I really hope valve is doing something behind the scenes to encourage developers to do something about how they deal with minimum/recommended specs though, and then personal builds and companies making boxes on shelves can work with that. It would be much better to say someone "look for 2014 spec A to E" rather than having to wonder which model number their components compare to.

I didn't catch the price tag before posting. Because that is quite on the high side.
But, nice to see more people are getting into it.

It would be a break through to see off the shelf steam boxes. But who knows.

The thing I see is that if Valve just announced tomorrow "Here's our steambox, Ta-da!", it wouldn't really be any more earth shattering than any other manufacturer or self build picking a spec. To make it of any importance you need to do stuff with that spec that makes PC gaming better, get developers on board to work to a certain reasonable standard at or close to that spec. I can see game developers going for it, maybe even most of them unofficially, but not hardware component manufacturers as I believe most of them want to (at least partially) obscure the performance of their parts and mask it behind model numbers you can't easily compare.

Simple method that I am going to follow:

Step 1. Get a PC that supports at least a 200 series NVIDIA card.
Step 2. Install ubuntu Linux.
Step 3. Install Steam.

PRG013 wrote:

Simple method that I am going to follow:

Step 1. Get a PC that supports at least a 200 series NVIDIA card.
Step 2. Install ubuntu Linux.
Step 3. Install Steam.

Step 4. Wait for developers to port their games to Linux

I use Linux almost exclusively, but I still dual boot Windows on my gaming PCs because the list of Linux native games on Steam is too small. Many indie games do port to Linux eventually, but often there can be a substantial lag.

Once Valve actually does have a Linux-based product on the market and developers have some reason to support it, Linux will be a lot more viable for this purpose.

I agree, but that said, Linux support now is a whole lot better than it's ever been. Outside of the AAA sphere it seems more developers are spreading their risk around, and don't want to be tied to windows.

PRG013 wrote:

Simple method that I am going to follow:

Step 1. Get a PC that supports at least a 200 series NVIDIA card.
Step 2. Install ubuntu Linux.
Step 3. Install Steam.

My simple method:

Step 1: Buy a PS4
Step 2: Turn it on

Sparhawk wrote:

I didn't catch the price tag before posting. Because that is quite on the high side.
But, nice to see more people are getting into it.

It would be a break through to see off the shelf steam boxes. But who knows.

I've a much less expensive guide for building a Steambox for $500. So if you want to build your own, that's the way to go. The downside though, as with any "build" is that it's pretty big. Not exactly the kind of thing you're going to put in your home theater cabinet.

An off-the-shelf Steambox already exists (unofficially). It's called the Alienware X51 and you can order it for $599 with Ubuntu installed (you have to go to "view all configurations" on the main page). It's not as powerful as my build but still decent enough for running games at medium to high detail and 30 FPS+, depending on the game. And it is about the size of a PS3 or Xbox 360 I've reviewed it, though not with Ubuntu.

There exists in the world a $70-ish Coolermaster micro itx case which supports a single full sized GPU. There's not a huge selection of mirco itx boards to go with it, but you can get one that should be just fine if you look around. You do have to be cognizant of size when picking other components too.

Which is to say, you can certainly make a really small PC which is plenty good for video games. You pay slightly more for that size reduction, though.

gore wrote:

There exists in the world a $70-ish Coolermaster micro itx case which supports a single full sized GPU. There's not a huge selection of mirco itx boards to go with it, but you can get one that should be just fine if you look around. You do have to be cognizant of size when picking other components too.

Which is to say, you can certainly make a really small PC which is plenty good for video games. You pay slightly more for that size reduction, though.

The main problem you'll run into with a small case is not the motherboard but the CPU cooling fan. Most small cases will not fit a particularly large one, which means you have either go stock (loud and not very good) or pay a decent bit for one of the handful small, highly effective fans or water block coolers on the market. I believe there are some cases, particularly things like the Silverstone SUGO line, that can offer the best of both words. But they are expensive, which rather spoils the fun and makes a pre-built option look a lot more attractive.